than on that of its intrinsic worth.

The title-page of 'Paracelsus' introduces us to one of the warmest
friendships of Mr. Browning's life. Count de Ripert-Monclar was a young
French Royalist, one of those who had accompanied the Duchesse de Berri
on her Chouan expedition, and was then, for a few years, spending his
summers in England; ostensibly for his pleasure, really--as he
confessed to the Browning family--in the character of private agent of
communication between the royal exiles and their friends in France. He
was four years older than the poet, and of intellectual tastes which
created an immediate bond of union between them. In the course of one of
their conversations, he suggested the life of Paracelsus as a possible
subject for a poem; but on second thoughts pronounced it unsuitable,
because it gave no room for the introduction of love: about which, he
added, every young man of their age thought he had something quite new
to say. Mr. Browning decided, after the necessary study, that he would
write a poem on Paracelsus, but treating him in his own way. It was
dedicated, in fulfilment of a promise, to the friend to whom its
inspiration had been due.

The Count's visits to England entirely ceased, and the two friends
did not meet for twenty years. Then, one day, in a street in Rome, Mr.
Browning heard a voice behind him crying, 'Robert!' He turned, and
there was 'Amedee'. Both were, by that time, married; the Count--then, I
believe, Marquis--to an English lady, Miss Jerningham. Mrs. Browning, to
whom of course he was introduced, liked him very much.*

* A minor result of the intimacy was that Mr. Browning
became member, in 1835, of the Institut Historique, and in
1836 of the Societe Francaise de Statistique Universelle, to
both of which learned bodies his friend belonged.

Mr. Browning did treat Paracelsus in his own way; and in so doing
produced a character--at all events a history--which, according
to recent judgments, approached far nearer to the reality than any
conception which had until then been formed of it. He had carefully
collected all the known facts of the great discoverer's life, and
interpreted them with a sympathy which was no less an intuition of their
truth than a reflection of his own genius upon them. We are enabled
in some measure to judge of this by a paper entitled 'Paracelsus, the
Reformer of Medicine', written by Dr. Edward Berdoe for the Browning
Society, and rea